Craig Andrews opens up about his leadership philosophy in this special New Year’s episode of Leaders and Legacies. Sharing a deeply personal story of resilience, Craig recounts how his team sustained his business during a six-week coma, a testament to trust and leadership. He emphasizes that successful growth requires more than ambition—it demands a clear marketing strategy, actionable goals, and an appropriate budget.

Craig debunks common misconceptions about marketing, distinguishing tactics from strategy. He outlines the elements of his Irresistible Growth Framework, focusing on clarity in messaging and cultivating an "irresistible aura." Vulnerability, Craig notes, isn’t a weakness but a magnetism that builds human connection. He also shares insights on allocating marketing budgets effectively, citing benchmarks from industry leaders.

This episode is a call to action for leaders aiming to make 2025 their best year yet. With strategic foresight and authenticity, Craig shows how leaders can inspire teams, attract clients, and achieve sustainable growth.

Want to learn more about Craig Andrews' work at allies4me? Check out his website at https://allies4me.com/.

Connect with Craig on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-andrews/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• [00:02:05] Strategy Over Tactics: Why a well-defined marketing strategy trumps scattered tactics like social media campaigns.
• [00:03:43] Irresistible Growth Framework: The three pillars—authority, acquisition, and automation—and their role in sustainable growth.
• [00:04:16] Message Clarity Matters: How clear, concise messaging creates immediate engagement.
• [00:05:05] The Magnetic Power of Vulnerability: Why showcasing flaws builds stronger connections and leadership presence.
• [00:07:07] Budgeting for Success: Insights on allocating 6–13.7% of revenue for effective marketing.
• [00:10:51] A Call to Plan: Leaders must set actionable growth goals with realistic budgets and strategies.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;05;06
Craig Andrews
Hey there. I want to wish you a Happy New Year. This is our New Year's Week episode, and we're not having a regular guest here on Leaders and Legacy. It's just because out of respect for our guest, we don't want to release one of their episodes when,

00;01;05;06 - 00;01;09;13
Craig Andrews
a lot of people are maybe distracted. But I hope you're not distracted.

00;01;09;14 - 00;01;25;23
Craig Andrews
I hope you're thinking about this next year. And I want you to be thinking about growth for this next year. Now, we don't talk about this much on the podcast, but, you know, when when I'm not doing the podcast, I'm a fractional chief marketing officer. I help,

00;01;25;23 - 00;01;32;22
Craig Andrews
businesses become irresistible to their cautious buyers. And so I just want to share some thoughts with you.

00;01;32;24 - 00;01;35;01
Craig Andrews
Based on things I've seen over the years,

00;01;35;01 - 00;01;47;11
Craig Andrews
questions that people ask me. And I want you to start thinking about a growth plan for 2025. And, you know, from one level, you know, people say, okay, I want to achieve,

00;01;47;11 - 00;01;49;08
Craig Andrews
20% growth,

00;01;49;08 - 00;02;00;19
Craig Andrews
this year, 10% growth or whatever. The number is. As a matter of fact, I was talking to somebody this morning that listed out their their growth goals and the,

00;02;00;19 - 00;02;05;01
Craig Andrews
but what's often missing from that is how will you get there?

00;02;05;04 - 00;02;05;21
Craig Andrews
You know, it's,

00;02;05;21 - 00;02;40;16
Craig Andrews
some type of will work harder. And I would say that in my observation, there are two things that are missing that are holding you back from achieving the growth that you want. And the first is not having a marketing strategy. And I want to be really clear about what strategy is when it comes to marketing, because what most people say is, I have a Facebook strategy or I have a LinkedIn strategy, and what I would say is actually what you have is a tactic.

00;02;40;19 - 00;03;01;01
Craig Andrews
That's not a strategy. It's a tactic you're strategy starts at a higher level, and the strategy starts with, what do you want people to believe about you? What do you want people to feel about you? And that's where your strategies should start coming in to,

00;03;01;01 - 00;03;11;28
Craig Andrews
to lay that in place. Then whether you're doing something on LinkedIn or Facebook or somewhere else, that's really not the most important thing.

00;03;12;04 - 00;03;43;20
Craig Andrews
The most important thing is whatever you're doing there is consistent with your strategy and that that strategy is being played out on your website. And I will tell you that the the top things I see people missing is two elements of, of that strategy. And, you know, we you can go to our website Ally's for me.com and we show our irresistible growth framework.

00;03;43;20 - 00;04;16;01
Craig Andrews
And it's basically three, you know, it's authority acquisition and automation and under authority the first place that what I say everybody needs to start with is under authority. You have irresistible aura and you have irresistible ideas, the irresistible ideas. Let me start there. That is having what you do be explained so quickly and so simply that people immediately get it and they immediately realize that they want it.

00;04;16;03 - 00;04;22;13
Craig Andrews
And there's one particular vertical that I've been talking to lately. I'm not going to mention it,

00;04;22;13 - 00;04;41;07
Craig Andrews
here, but it's really interesting. It's it's a vertical that draws a lot of very passionate pioneers. They're doing something new in that space. And the thing that strikes me is when I talk to these guys, I can never really figure out what it is they're doing.

00;04;41;10 - 00;05;05;08
Craig Andrews
And that's rare. I'm usually pretty good at figuring figuring out what people are doing. I sort of have an idea, but every time they talk to me, I walk away confused. Well, that's a message clarity issue. And it's that irresistible idea of, hey, here's how you should do something, and you can lay it out immediately and simply, and that people will immediately want it.

00;05;05;10 - 00;05;33;10
Craig Andrews
And so that's part of your strategy and that's part of your messaging strategy. The other part is irresistible. Are this is a special magnetism that draws people into you. If you think about the Mona Lisa smile, you know, for hundreds of years, people found that smile irresistible, magnetic. But they could never explain it. Every time Hollywood figured out how to manufacture that,

00;05;33;10 - 00;05;35;19
Craig Andrews
irresistible thing, they do it every week.

00;05;35;19 - 00;05;57;18
Craig Andrews
They write it into their characters and if you're building a business and you want to have you want to get paid more for what you do and you want to have more secure market share, well, you need to work on that irresistible aura. You want to create that magnetism, and there's a number of ingredients that go into it.

00;05;57;21 - 00;06;20;26
Craig Andrews
I'll tell you the one that everybody messes. It's the exposure of a weakness, vulnerability or flaw. And if you wonder about that, think about your favorite movie or your favorite television show, and look at that and you will see the character, you know, the hero has some form that's just played out,

00;06;20;26 - 00;06;24;21
Craig Andrews
in their life, and it humanizes them.

00;06;24;23 - 00;06;52;11
Craig Andrews
It makes them, relatable. It creates magnetism. So that's one of the ingredients that goes into the irresistible aura. So that's kind of the strategy point. There's obviously other elements that go into the strategy, but that's the first thing I see so many people spending money on marketing that don't have a strategy. They're focused on tactics. Tactics are, you know, we're going to do a video sales there.

00;06;52;11 - 00;06;53;16
Craig Andrews
We're going to do,

00;06;53;16 - 00;07;07;29
Craig Andrews
Facebook and we're going to do LinkedIn and different types of things. And that's not the strategy. That's just a tactic. The second thing that I see people,

00;07;07;29 - 00;07;23;11
Craig Andrews
mistake I see people make is they don't assign enough budget. And if you look at the best run companies in the world, they can tell you by function what percentage of top line revenue they spend on that function.

00;07;23;11 - 00;07;26;27
Craig Andrews
You know, like for research and development, they spend a certain amount,

00;07;26;27 - 00;07;32;25
Craig Andrews
but one of those line items is marketing. And,

00;07;32;25 - 00;07;34;08
Craig Andrews
Deloitte is a big,

00;07;34;08 - 00;07;52;18
Craig Andrews
consulting firm. They do a survey. Now, obviously a lot of the a lot of their clients are bigger enterprise type clients. But these bigger enterprise clients, according to Deloitte, spend 13.7% of revenue on marketing.

00;07;52;20 - 00;08;35;20
Craig Andrews
Think about that. There's a reason that they're big. They spend 13.7% of revenue on marketing. You know, Henry Ford said that those that want to save money by cutting ads or those that save cut ads to save money are like those that stop their watch to save time. Ford was very frugal, but he understood. Hey, if he wants to grow, he needs to be marketing his business and a lot of people say that they're in a referral only business and they're like, so we don't have a marketing budget.

00;08;35;20 - 00;08;42;10
Craig Andrews
There's a budget. We just do referrals. And what ends up happening is eventually the referrals run dry.

00;08;42;10 - 00;08;56;00
Craig Andrews
Just something happens. And, you know, we've been working with somebody in 2024 that when they came to us in May of 2024, they were 100% referrals. And the referral source, dried up,

00;08;56;00 - 00;08;57;01
Craig Andrews
high ticket,

00;08;57;01 - 00;09;00;15
Craig Andrews
software business, offshore software development.

00;09;00;17 - 00;09;06;16
Craig Andrews
You know, their deals are, you know, often 100 K to a million. And,

00;09;06;16 - 00;09;26;07
Craig Andrews
so they came to us in May, by September ish, October ish, we had them booking regular calls with people had never met before and closing deals with these people. And so you can break out of that if you believe that you're in a referral only business.

00;09;26;10 - 00;09;45;13
Craig Andrews
All that means is you haven't figured out how to build trust with strangers. Which guess what? This goes back to the first thing that people are missing the strategy. When you have your irresistible aura and your irresistible ideas, all of a sudden it's easy to bring in strangers and convert them with clients. But you have to give it a budget.

00;09;45;13 - 00;09;52;21
Craig Andrews
The best phone companies have marketing as a percentage of revenue, and I mentioned Deloitte's thing,

00;09;52;21 - 00;09;55;15
Craig Andrews
survey shows 13.7%.

00;09;55;15 - 00;10;18;25
Craig Andrews
And I would imagine there's a few people listening. They're gasping right now saying, there's no way I could ever spend 13.7% of top line revenue on marketing. Well, the SBA, Small Business Association, they also do a survey. And they find that a lot of small businesses spend between 6 and 8% on marketing.

00;10;18;28 - 00;10;26;28
Craig Andrews
And so, you know, the businesses that we work with typically are north of a million. And,

00;10;26;28 - 00;10;51;02
Craig Andrews
and our goal is actually never to spend that full, you know, we shoot the middle 7% of, hey, this is what you should expect to spend. But we're generally shooting for, you know, 4% of revenue. But, well-run businesses always spend a percentage of revenue on marketing.

00;10;51;05 - 00;11;10;04
Craig Andrews
And look at the big guys. The big guys are spending 13.7% on marketing. And so if you're wanting to grow in 2025, come to grips with what a realistic marketing budget should be. It can't be an afterthought.

00;11;10;04 - 00;11;17;26
Craig Andrews
It can't be. You know, you have to give it a decent budget. But the other thing is you also have to start with a strategy.

00;11;17;26 - 00;11;38;14
Craig Andrews
If you start with a strategy, it's not going to get the results that you want. So as you're looking into 2025, I would say start with your growth goals and then start saying, okay, how are we going to achieve this? How are we going to achieve this and and start backing that out and

00;11;38;14 - 00;11;42;11
Craig Andrews
and you'll start coming up with answers.

00;11;42;11 - 00;11;46;07
Craig Andrews
We, you know, we help people put those together.

00;11;46;07 - 00;11;46;26
Craig Andrews
You know, we have

00;11;46;26 - 00;11;51;14
Craig Andrews
we actually put together a marketing plan for folks for a,

00;11;51;14 - 00;11;57;24
Craig Andrews
insanely good price. It's part of our belief system that's tied into what we call first time offers.

00;11;57;24 - 00;12;03;27
Craig Andrews
You know, you can read about that in my book called Make Sales Magical. And,

00;12;03;27 - 00;12;05;01
Craig Andrews
but those really,

00;12;05;01 - 00;12;06;06
Craig Andrews
those really make,

00;12;06;06 - 00;12;10;17
Craig Andrews
the deals go through and, but have a plan.

00;12;10;20 - 00;12;21;19
Craig Andrews
Start with a plan. And if you don't have a plan, reach out. We can help you build one. All right, well, I hope you're 2025 is kicking off with you, filled full of hope and looking for a year of,

00;12;21;19 - 00;12;24;18
Craig Andrews
prosperity. And,

00;12;24;18 - 00;12;28;01
Craig Andrews
I just want to thank you for listening to Leaders and Legacies. Please,

00;12;28;01 - 00;12;28;24
Craig Andrews
please follow us.

00;12;28;24 - 00;12;31;09
Craig Andrews
Please like us. Please subscribe. And,

00;12;31;09 - 00;12;35;13
Craig Andrews
please share the show. Happy New Year.

00;12;35;13 - 00;13;02;09
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;13;02;09 - 00;13;04;04
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;13;04;06 - 00;13;27;16
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;13;27;18 - 00;13;35;23
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;13;35;23 - 00;15;37;28
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.